>Rant: The Clark Experience

7:00am ~ bring kids to school
8:00am ~ MEGA: breakfast at McDonald’s ~ oops… Starbucks ~ oops… Bali Blends ~ oops… Jollibee na nga lang
9:00am ~ tambay @ starbucks
11:00am ~ bus ride to Diosdado Macapagal Airport aka Clark Airport
12:30nn ~ start of rant:

• passengers are only allowed inside the airport 2 hours before the flight
  we were made to wait under the sun until an hour before the flight, without any explanation as to why we were waiting out there
• out of nowhere, amidst a restless mob, an airport officer shows himself and announces: “Yun pung flight papuntang Macau, yung Tiger, CANCELLED PO ANG FLIGHT NINYO. Yun pung papuntang Singapore, Tiger din po, Stand-by lang po muna.”

• of course, after making us wait for hours without any airconditioning, without any explanation whatsoever, they expect us to be calm and collected – and understanding. With my resounding voice, I demanded: “GIVE US SOMEBODY FROM TIGER! SOMEONE WHO CAN ANSWER OUR QUESTIONS.” They cannot offer us any alternative because apparently, despite the fact the Tiger has been operating here for awhile now, they do not have any employees here. So I ask, “ARE YOU GOING TO PAY FOR THE HOTEL WE’VE PAID FOR IN MACAU? DO YOU HAVE COMPUTERS WE CAN USE SO THAT WE CAN RE-BOOK FOR THE FOLLOWING DAY? WILL YOU PAY FOR OUR HOTEL EXPENSE IF NEED BE THAT WE STAY OVERNIGHT IN CLARK?” wow. All I got was silence from the crowd and a mum from the officers. It made me wonder if they understood English…
• after a few minutes, mr. airport officer comes out again, and practically whispered: “we’re allowing 86 passengers inside the airport to re-book for the flight tomorrow…” Thanks to Shierel’s super ears, we heard it… and thanks to our singit powers and our sungit disposition, we were able to squeeze up front…
• Thanks to calm and focused chie, we were able to make it inside Ü got the booking for the following day soon as we were sure that the flight for that day was really cancelled. Got an explanation from them: Tiger Airways’ landing permit expired last Dec 31. they were given 4 days to renew ~ Jan 1, 2, 3, 4… and our flight: Jan 5!!! So they couldn’t land then…
• got seats in the airport and went about calling the travel agent for a 1 day hotel refund and I got in touch with our hotel booking at clark for VILLA de LUGUE (hehehehe!) ~ Thanks Kuy Vic for all the help and to ‘Te Marge for the warm hospitality!
  a certain ms. Airport officer approached my buds and said: “Sa Macau po kayo? Nakapag re-book na kayo? Pwede na po kayong umalis.” >>panting ang tenga<< “NAGHAHANAP PA KAMI NANG MATITIRHAN ANO!”
• we pitied the employees of Macau who were helpless… those that were able to re-book but had no place to stay… a couple, who expressed their angst earlier on the confusion, had to bus back to Manila because of the frustration…

5:30pm ~ ride to VILLA de LUGUE
… had mucho food to eat! … shierel was happy Ü

we don’t know if we’re unlucky to be the first flight of Tiger from Manila to ever be cancelled or if we’re lucky that we still got the opportunity to fly to Macau… They’ve stopped their flights to Macau since then…
we don’t know if we’re unlucky that we had to pay for that one night lost hotel room in Macau or if we’re lucky that we just paid 2,700 for the roundtrip tickets… and got the opportunity to stay over and experience the Capampangan hospitality everyones raving about...

nonetheless… our trip was great… the weather, the place, the food ~ wonderful! Read on about our adventure in MACAU…